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Fifteen California lawmakers from both parties are up in arms over Gov. Gavin Newsom’s latest proposal to to use the budget process to fast-track the Delta tunnel — a deeply controversial, $20 billion plan to replumb the estuary and funnel more water south.

With the clock ticking for the Legislature to pass a budget bill tackling the state’s $12 billion deficit, Newsom dropped a spending plan last week that would add sweeping changes to permitting, litigation, financing, and eminent domain and land acquisition issues aimed at speeding approval of the massive project.

“We’re done with barriers — our state needs to complete this project as soon as possible, so that we can better store and manage water to prepare for a hotter, drier future,” Newsom said in a statement last week. “Let’s get this built.”

Assembly and Senate Democrats and Republicans representing Delta counties, including Sacramento, Yolo, Contra Costa and San Joaquin, fired back in a letter last week, saying it would “change several, separate parts of state law to benefit only a portion of California, to the detriment of Californians north of the Delta.”

In a hearing and press briefing on Tuesday, several warned Newsom and legislative leaders that the tunnel’s water supply benefits would not outweigh its financial costs nor its toll on communities, farms and the environment in the Delta region.

“Shifting water from one farming region to benefit another farming region doesn’t solve our water crisis, it only makes it worse,” Assemblymember Lori Wilson, a Democrat from Suisun City and co-chair of the Delta Caucus, said Tuesday.

“Our state needs to complete this project as soon as possible, so that we can better store and manage water to prepare for a hotter, drier future.”
— Gov. Gavin Newsom

The Delta Conveyance Project, the official name of the tunnel, would stretch 45 miles from the Sacramento River to a reservoir near Livermore, diverting water around the Delta. The state’s original tunnel proposal dates back more than 60 years.

The project’s goal is to increase exports of Northern California water south — much of it to cities in Southern California and farms in the San Joaquin Valley — during wet years. It’s also supposed to shore up the supply against earthquakes or other disasters that could swamp the estuary in salt water, tainting or even cutting off State Water Project supplies that 27 million people and 750,000 acres of farmland rely on.

“It does feel like drought’s coming back for us, and it will in all likelihood be deeper and longer,” Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources and Newsom’s senior water advisor, told lawmakers of the Assembly Budget Subcommittee on Climate Crisis, Resources, Energy and Transportation.

Being able to move water when it’s wet into reservoirs or thirsty aquifers, Nemeth said, “has never been more important.”

Water agencies in the Bay Area and Southern California applauded Newsom’s proposals, saying they would cut costs and shorten the timeline for the project and make their water supply more reliable in a time of climate change.

But Delta counties warned Newsom and legislative leaders in a letter that “every city and county affected by this project in the Delta region opposes the tunnel.”

A sign displayed in the small Sacramento County town of Hood, which would be near the main construction site for the proposed $20 billion project. Photo by Fred Greaves for CalMatters

In the packed hearing room on Tuesday, opposition outweighed support. Many raised concerns that they might lose their power to fight a project that they fear could scour the Delta landscape with construction and staunch freshwater flows already insufficient to keep harmful algal blooms at bay or support the state’s collapsing salmon fishery.

“This project will damage the Delta in countless ways and pass on the costs to my generation of Californians,” Wesley Motlow, a resident of the small Delta community of Locke, told committee members. “I’ve always been proud to be a member of the state, but if this project is seen to fruition, I will not feel that way.”

A state analysis warned in 2022 that a Delta tunnel would put salmon at risk. This past spring, salmon fishing was cancelled for an unprecedented third year in a row.

“Drying out the North just to water the South doesn’t make it better at all, and it doesn’t make it fair,” said Assemblymember Stephanie Nguyen, a Democrat from Elk Grove who pushed instead for more recycled water and other local strategies.

“This project will damage the Delta in countless ways and pass on the costs to my generation of Californians.”
— Westley Motlow, resident of Locke, a small Delta community

Newsom’s streamlining proposals take aim at an array of hurdles the tunnel project would have to clear, as well as recent court decisions that could set it back.

One change would codify the state’s authority to issue revenue bonds to fund the project — which participating water agencies would have to pay back. A court ruled last year that the state water agency “exceeded its delegated authority” for the bonds.

Newsom’s proposal would shorten the timeline to resolve challenges in court, limit injunctions against construction activities unless they present “an imminent threat to public health and safety” and alter some procedures and oversight for acquiring properties under eminent domain. It would also eliminate certain deadlines related to water rights for the State Water Project, according to a Senate analysis, and limit the ability of others to file protests against the state.

“It creates a separate water rights system for the State Water Project that upends over a century of water rights law,” said Osha Meserve, counsel for various local water agencies and other opponents of the Delta tunnel.

An aerial view of Threemile Slough in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta near Rio Vista on May 19, 2024. Photo by Loren Elliott for CalMatters

Also, Senate analysts said, the proposal “does not contain language that would allow a court to stay or enjoin a project to protect native American artifacts or historical resources.”

Malissa Tayaba, vice chair of the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians and director of traditional knowledge, said the tunnel threatens their homelands and desecrate the resting place of their ancestors.

“It seems that, to Governor Newsom, our culture, our ancestors and the environment that sustains us is worth less than the ability to over-divert water from our rivers to send more water and money to commercial water interests,” Tayaba said.

Environmental advocates say the governor’s proposal is an end run around laws and court decisions that could affect environmental protections beyond the Delta.

“What the governor calls barriers, we call laws,” Jon Rosenfield, science director with the San Francisco Baykeeper, said at the press conference Tuesday.

“It seems that, to Governor Newsom, our culture, our ancestors and the environment that sustains us is worth less than the ability to…send more water and money to commercial water interests.”
— Malissa Tayaba, Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians

Many legislators took issue with Newsom’s strategy of using add-ons to the budget — called trailer bills — to rush through complex policy proposals that they fear would limit the public’s power to challenge the massive project.

The normally circumspect, nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office agreed.

“These are issues that have been debated and discussed for years and even decades, and the Legislature simply does not have much time … to consider all of the potential implications,” Sonja Petek, principal fiscal and policy analyst with the Legislative Analyst’s Office, told lawmakers. With such a challenging budget ahead and decisions looming to cut services that Californians rely on, Petek said, these proposals “serve as a distraction.”

It’s not the first time Newsom has taken this tact. In 2023, he proposed overhauling permitting and litigation for the Delta tunnel under the California Environmental Quality Act as part of a broader infrastructure package. Lawmakers were outraged and rejected that part of the proposal.

Tara Gallegos, Newsom’s deputy director of communications, said in an email that the statements from legislators and environmentalists at the press conference Tuesday “demonstrated why this fast track is necessary, as it is clear that misinformation will continue to delay and obfuscate this critical project.” She said solutions such as more recycled water are “simplistic” and “ignore the practical realities” of providing sufficient and reliable supplies.

Assemblymember Steve Bennett, a Democrat from Oxnard and chair of the budget subcommittee, said debate about the tunnel will likely be deferred until after the budget vote in June.

“These conversations take time. There’s a lot of fear. There’s palpable frustration,” he said. “I know that going through policy committees is not considered fun, but given the magnitude of this issue, it may be the only way you can actually get enough information out there, in a steady enough format, to be able to make this move.”